Re: THEORY: NATLANGS: Phonology and Phonetics: Tetraphthongs, Triphthongs, Dipht

On 5/26/06, John Vertical <johnvertical@...> wrote:
> As others have already mentioned, then you have difthongs with "lowered
> glides". AusEng has been brought up already; also, the Savonian dialects of
> Finnish commonly lower [i]-final, and sometimes also [u]-final difthongs.
I apologize if you've addressed this before, and I certainly don't
mean to be rude, but why do you consistently spell "diphthong" as
"difthong"?  I find it quite distracting, not to mention aphonetic
since I pronounce "diphthong" with a /p/ instead of an /f/ (a
prescriptively sanctioned pronunciation, in case you're wondering :)).

I can't find any support for "difthong" as an alternate spelling in
English.  If you're trying to institute a reform, of course, more
power to you, but if there's a specific reason I'd love to hear it. :)
--
Mark J. Reed <markjreed@...>